Mouse traps have been designed in numerous ways throughout the years but by far the most popular mouse trap, at least from a commercial standpoint, is the mouse trap which has a base plate upon which is mounted a spring biased striker arm which can be moved from a released position to a cocked position and releasably held in the cocked position by a wire bale and a baited trigger arm which cooperate in releasing the striker arm to deliver a lethal blow to a mouse or the like when the mouse touches the trigger arm. This type of mouse trap has proved to be adequately reliable but very crude and distasteful to housewives who have the chore of removing the mouse trap or in disposing of the trap and the mouse as a whole.
Other mouse traps such as of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,762,093 owned by William E. Rhode have made attempts to conceal the mouse within a housing when it is killed or otherwise trapped so that a housewife or the like can dispose of the mouse and/or the trap without seeing the dead mouse, but to applicant's knowledge, such mouse traps have not met with commercial success possibly due to the complexity of the devices which have a direct effect on the expense of manufacturing the mouse trap.
Another drawback of prior art mouse traps, whether they be of the exposed or enclosed type, is that they are an attractive nuisance insofar as small children are concerned since children are intrigued with the mouse traps and can easily get their finger or other body member caught in the trap possibly causing bodily harm to the child. It does not appear that developers of prior art mouse traps have given any meaningful thought to child proofing mouse traps so that they do not pose a potential hazard for small inquisitive children.